The Canadian Forces jobs where only women need apply

A crew member examines a Canadian Forces Chinook helicopter as they prepare to ferry G7 leaders from CFB Bagotville, Quebec, to the summit in Charlevoix, Quebec on June 7, 2018. GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images

Marked as employment equity (or EE), there are some jobs of the Canadian Forces where only women need to apply. In fact, this will depend on the week and on whether the employment equity (or EE) objectives are met. In this way, Canadian forces periodically close some of their approximately 100 occupations or exchanges to any applicant, except women.

It has been established that the information is contained in the so-called weekly “processing cheat sheets” used by the recruiting staff. In fact, some of them were obtained and in the same way, they have been confirmed by a military source.

It should be noted that the source will not be disclosed because it could have repercussions. Even so, it also has the backing of the commander of the recruitment group, Colonel Luc Sabourin. Who has confirmed in a telephone interview that the forms “are a weekly tool that allows us to meet our designated objectives of EE (employment equity)”.

A system with restrictions?

It is necessary to bring to mind the fact that Sabourin agreed that, in practice, it means that if a white man applied for a job that was temporarily available only to EE candidates, he would be informed that the occupation was complete and they discussed other work possibilities.

However, he assures that if the job, in particular, was the “difficult choice” of the man, it would be written down in his application and he would be contacted later when the EE objectives had been met and the occupation was open again for all.

A relevant fact to mention is that a sheet from July 26 of last year clearly shows that the places in 17 jobs were designated EE and then they were “accepting requests only from women”.

However, other occupations were still identified as those in which “priority is given to EE applicants. No-EE can apply”. In response to this, Virginia Tattersall, commander of what is called “military personnel generation” expressed through a telephone interview that “despite what you can see marked on those sheets, and may depend on the time of year (someone request), honestly depends, I can affirm categorically that in any occupation we will only select from the EE group”.

In another moment, she said firmly: “There are no occupations that we restrict according to gender”.